


Steady

by AbelQuartz



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Adults, Aged-Up Character(s), Arguing, College, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Forgiveness, Love, Marriage, Napping, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 14:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20909519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbelQuartz/pseuds/AbelQuartz
Summary: Connie's been at college for a couple months. During one of Steven's visits, a question comes to light.





	Steady

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my requests that I got over on Tumblr! Commissions are closed, but you can ask for stories you want over on abel-quartz.tumblr.com

“…you don’t mean, like, right now.”

“Why not?”

Connie stopped walking and turned to face Steven. The young man raised an eyebrow, smirking with a jester’s confidence. Connie watched him rocking on his heels, but she didn’t even have to guess that he was nervous. Even Steven wasn’t free from the question’s inherent anxiety.

“Okay, well, do you have anything planned for it?”

“You’ve seen the book. I don’t have anything decided, but - ”

“I meant with like, a proposal or something.”

Steven didn’t have an immediate answer. Connie sighed and kept walking, bunching up her jacket around herself and gripping her bookbag. Even though her college was far from coast, the state’s weather made no promises to be gentler than the Atlantic, and was actually higher in elevation; Connie’s RA had said they might even see snow soon. Steven’s sweater looked thick enough to protect him from a blizzard, and his boots squeaked as he followed Connie. They walked in relative silence up the brick path, up to the breezeway of Connie’s dorm. She swiped her keycard. Steven opened the door for them when the light turned green.

“Didn’t you say that some of the seniors were married, too?” Steven said as Connie passed. “I mean, it happens all the time! I’m just saying, it’s not weird for it to happen.”

“I know it’s not weird.”

“But you don’t want to?”

“It’s not that I don’t, Steven, I’m just - ”

“Why not?”

The elevator opened up, and another student walked out with bass vibrating their headphones. They walked right past the pair, and Connie stepped brusquely into the lift after them. Steven edged his way in, hands shoved in his pockets. He could call Lion and warp back at any time, but he wasn’t going to. Connie wouldn’t let him. The man scratched his stubble.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “It’s not like that. I don’t - you know that I don’t want to force you into anything, I’m only saying that - you know, there’s no reason why we couldn’t, or shouldn’t, or whatever.”

“No, Steven, I get that, but this really isn’t the right time.”

“I know! Obviously we shouldn’t get stop to get married when you’re starting school. I’d never try to force you out of that.”

“I know. Steven, just let me think,” Connie said.

She could see the reassurances coming up from Steven’s chest and getting caught in his throat. He wanted to badly to make this right for her, but she wanted to think, and so, the elevator was silent for a moment. 

Before the bell tolled, Connie reached over and took Steven’s hand. If she wanted, she could rest her head on his shoulder. Immediately, she wondered what message that would send, what he would think of her motion. Connie hated herself for being so anxious about a gesture she wouldn’t have even noticed when they were home. She hated Steven for bringing her mind to a confused place, and then she hated herself again for hating Steven. There were a thousand little pieces that were digging into them both like needles. True loathing she knew, and this was mere annoyance, anxiety disguised as hatred, a rabbit-hole of semantics.

The freshman dorms were just rooms in a hall, bare bones compared to the kitchen amenities in the newest buildings across campus. Maybe next year she could ask for a spot. For the moment, the two of them walked quietly to Connie’s room, and the young woman let go as she fished in her pockets for her key. Steven reached to pick at the themed nametags taped to the varnish. Everyone had an aquatic animal sticker and plastic gemstones dotted over their bubble letters. Connie had deep blue teardrop gems and a great white shark; her roommate’s name, misspelled MABLE, was yellow, with orange stones and a poorly proportioned platypus.

“She’s spending time with her uncle and brother,” Connie said, pushing the door open, “so she might be gone for the weekend. I don’t know, but she’s a good communicator.”

“Right, yeah.”

They stepped in, and Steven closed the door behind her. There were two connected desks on the opposite side of the room, and one bed each on the left and right. Connie took off her jacket and hung it on the corner of her bedpost, then pulled up her desk chair and wheeled it backwards to sit and face Steven. The man sat down on her bed, leaning over on his knees with a heavy grunt.

“So,” he mumbled.

“Okay, wait,” Connie snapped, biting her lip to stop herself from getting too angry. “Are you pissed at me now? For not wanting to drop my scholarship to get married?”

“I don’t want you to leave school! I never said you had to leave school!”

Steven jabbed himself in the chest with each ‘I,’ then clenched his hand into a loose fist.

“I didn’t know this was such a big deal to you!” he said. “All I’m saying is that there’s - there’s nothing stopping us from just, being married, and that’s it, and we don’t have to do anything until you’re out of school - like, do you think I wanted to drag you off campus and chain you to an oven or some shit?”

“No. No, Steven, you do not get to give meaning to my words.”

“That’s not what I - ”

Steven stopped himself, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Connie dropped a finger that she didn’t know she had been pointing. The Gem propped his elbow on his knee and rested his chin.

“Okay. You’re right. But I need you to tell me why you’re feeling so… I need you to tell me why it seems, from my perspective, that you have negative associations with this.”

“Because it’s a big deal! You can’t ‘just’ get married, Steven! It’s not even about the celebration, it’s like - what about our folks?”

Connie rolled to the side, and Steven sighed, eyes roving across the photographs on his girlfriend’s desk. In between their senior family portrait and a photo of Pearl from training sessions, there was a snapshot of Connie and Steven that Greg had secretly taken at Connie’s graduation, just the two of them laughing in the middle of the dance floor. Despite the odd mood of the room, Steven let out a little smile.

“I don’t care what my parents say about us marrying, because they kinda know it’s going to happen anyway. But we all have this… Call it a notion, a schedule,” Connie said, her hand waving in the air. “It’s college, then marriage, then job, and it’s one thing at a time. I don’t want to say that you have it easier, but Steven, I’m not…”

The word failed to come. Steven watched for a moment, waiting for the air so as not to interrupt. When Connie turned her head in silence, the man sat up, taking a deep breath. 

“You’re stressed?”

“Mm. Yeah.”

“Connie…”

He reached over and held the back of the chair, then pulled Connie over closer to him. The wheels stumbled on the carpet. Steven let his hand down, folding it over the other in his lap. 

“I’m sorry for snapping at your like that, but I felt scared,” he murmured. “Because - I always assumed that we were going to get married eventually. We’ve just been together for so long, like, together-together. And I thought, shit, we’re grown up.”

“Why did you feel scared?”

“I also thought you felt the same way. But when you said that it’s not the right time, I felt that maybe you had changed your mind.”

“What, about getting married?” Connie said, laughing quietly.

“About us.”

Connie sat up as well, incredulous, and stared at Steven as he shifted uncomfortably. He seemed embarrassed - as he should be, Connie thought. But feelings were feelings. She got up from the chair and rotated, sliding herself onto her mattress right next to her boyfriend.

“College, right? It’s a big, new world full of other people,” Steven mumbled. “Y’know, and there are people who are getting educated, and they’re smart, and they’re hot, and you’re around them all the time and I’m just Steven again.”

“And I’ll always love ‘just Steven.’ You know that.”

“It’s that awful, nervous crap - like, I’ve seen how much you love me, and then I can’t help but imagining you loving someone else even more, and you being happier, and I want you to be happier but - you know, with me. And then I feel selfish for thinking that, because, like, who am I to make you not happy, and - fuck, it’s stupid, and I hate thinking and feeling this way.”

“That feeling…” Connie said, “Is that why you wanted to get married?”

“Maybe. Shit.”

An answer to the anxious question, a solution to a riddle that didn’t exist - Connie understood exactly what Steven was feeling. It wasn’t even about the marriage itself. If she answered yes, it meant that she still loved him and would in the future. Her promise would have helped Steven, but only validated his fears. He was realizing it now, and the man shook his head, laughing at himself.

“God, we really are grown up, aren’t we,” he said.

“Are you kidding me? I don’t even turn twenty for another month.”

“Come on, I mean - let me exaggerate just a little, please?”

“Not if you’re gonna be philosophical about it. I’ve met those majors, and they’re wonderful people - until they start talking about philosophy.”

“Duly noted. I’ll get my nerd repellent.”

They laughed quietly for a moment, then heaved identically tired sighs. Connie shivered as Steven took his hand and ran it up the back of her neck, a gentle massage on the base of her scalp. In the silences, she was used to Steven touching her, soft physical loves, reminders that she was as real as their love. It was easy to get used to.

“So.”

Steven cleared his throat, his fingers tapping softly. Connie leaned against him and sighed, patting him on the thigh.

“I promise,” she said, “after I finish school, after I get all this out of the way, then you can propose however you want, and we can have whatever kind of wedding you want, and I’ll tell all my family and we’ll do all that.”

“Did you just accept my marriage proposal proposal?”

“I didn’t accept a damn thing. This is my proposal.”

“Then yes! I’ll take it.”

“Dork.”

“Hey - ”

Steven moved his hand over to Connie’s shoulder and pulled her towards him, leaning over to kiss her on the head. Her hand tightened on his leg, and she remembered how much she missed this time. If marriage was like this every day, maybe she could be ready earlier. For now, she was fine getting practice in.

“I love you, Connie.”

“I love you, too.”

He squeezed, then glanced towards the door. Connie raised her eyes to see him kick off his boots and push them away, the heavy soles mushing into the carpet. She leaned back, raising an eyebrow.

“What?” Steven said. “You said your roomate’s not gonna be back for a bit.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Well… College is stressful, y’know. I figure we could do something together we haven’t done in a bit.”

“Right now? In the middle of the day?”

“I promise, it’ll be safe.”

“You know I could barely sleep the night after the last time.”

“C’mon, Connie. You know you need it.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Steven knew it, too, and he smiled as Connie turned her head. The man leaned down, and in a moment of peace, their lips met. The kiss was as gentle as the autumn rain that started to patter against the window. Connie knew she’d be warm in a moment, though. Her shoes came off first, then Steven’s sweater. They wouldn’t be needing them.

It didn’t take five minutes for Steven and Connie to be curled up together under her comforter and a blanket, bodies and pillows supporting each other. Steven needed the nap almost as much as she did. The closest street was far enough away for only the faintest sound of engines to reach them. The rain covered up the rest of the world in soft percussion. Connie closed her eyes and let the gray patterns play out around her. The man behind her held her tightly, breathing like a bear into the back of her neck. His body was so warm, soft against her. Stress melted off her flesh and into the mattress. Connie didn’t have to think about the future, not with Steven pulling her close. There were so many moving parts, but he could pull them all together. He was a constant. His love was a promise. It had always been. 

Connie didn’t have to worry. Gray turned to static, static to black, and soon, her breath matched Steven’s, eyes closed, mouth open, bodies bent together. They dreamed silently. 


End file.
